Our Singing Country
Complete Text, Lyrics & Sheet Music
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Social Songs |
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THE MERMAID
ti>. No. 1438. Eliza Pace, Hyden, Ky., 1937. See Child No. 2895 Sh, 1:292.
Aunt'Lize Pace, eighty years odd, is the wittiest and gayest lady in Leslie County, Kentucky. She lives with her daughter in an old log cabin on the bank of the Clear Fork and, when Lize is not inching along over her cane to the post office or entertaining some neighbor's child at her front door, she has her face in a book, her old eyes following a story of adventure in the Klondike or on the sea.
"Years ago when that funny old Englishman * come over the mountains and wrote down these old love songs I know, I could sing like a mockingÂbird, and wasnyt no step I couldnH put my foot to in a dance. I didnyt keer for nothing and I was happy as a lark all day. But now Pm a-gittiny deef and erbout lame, and I canyt stir around for my liviny like I used to. The government sends me my old-age money, but itys shore hard to support a family on three dollars a month, now, ainyt it? Thatys what makes it so 1 canyt remember that last verse to this here pretty song. Anyhow, I do pretty well for sich an old woman—donyt I, now?" |
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i As I went out one evening, Far out of sight of the land, There I saw a mermaid a-sitting on a rock With a comb and a glass in her hand.
* The English collector Cecil J. Sharp.
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